Babymetal

So do forgive me for beating the Babymetal drum, but the fact remains that every Su-metal exhalation is cause for recognition among Western wota of pretty much any stripes, and all that to-do from the other day has culminated in a ton of fallout, not to mention thinking and angsting and so on. I thought, rather than try to keep up with it all in real time, why not use the patented format of the Weekender to sum up the rest of Babymetal’s week?

And Here We Are

The first thing that must be acknowledged is that Koba all but doubled down on the doubters yesterday:

I could not have been more explicit when I said that Amuse doesn’t care about you other than your ability to have a transactional relationship with Babymetal, but no, I was the bad guy. Or very likely the person that you agreed with, judging by the comments! I just felt like a little rueful back-patting upon finding out that MY LITERAL BABYMETAL SUB-OSHI YUIMETAL, Patron Saint of Try-hards Everywhere, did not appear at the Kansas City show last night. Let’s have a taste!

Oh neat, did my kvetching actually accomplish something?* You may have been caught up in the furor earlier today when a new Babymetal song (“Distortion!”) briefly appeared on YouTube before being taken down. Not fast enough to discourage a few quick-fingered downloaders, apparently, as it was the opposite of difficult to track down over the past several hours.

At Tokyo Midnight, though, Amuse pulled the trigger and gave us the first significant new Babymetal in well over two years:

The smart money so far seems to be on the seven spirits being the band (fair enough), though some people are speculating about new members, new units, and so on. This is the stock in trade of Babymetal fans, in fact — if we ain’t speculatin’, we ain’t happy. Continue reading →

It feels like my timing was off for a Babymetal release by the end of the year (though I get a keep-the-seat-warm strategy, too), but today’s confirmation of an appearance at Rock on the Range in May — and thereby backdoor confirmation of a U.S. tour in 2018 — combined with other stuff that we already know, is screaming out that an album is impending.

By the way, that’s some good billing! I wondered where they were starting to rank in the overall heavy milieu — coming out ahead of Asking Alexandria and Trivium and Black Veil Brides, etc., that’s pretty good, or at least good marketing. (Also, Maynard, you’re gonna be a busy dude.)

If you follow the link, you’ll see that the merch on issue is a five-DVD set from each of the Fox God Festival shows held quasi-recently, plus the mask accompanying each (hand-made! painted with the blood of slain angels!), for right around $500 US (not including shipping, or potentially customs, and you still need to be of THE ONE to get into a lottery to be among the lucky 500 to buy it, etc.).

What you’re about to see was all just destined for the Weekender because, like, Babymetal’s cool and fun, but they’re also in this weird kind of cruise control (by big idol standards), which isn’t exactly rare for them, but here we are, almost 18 full months since Metal Resistance, and they’re basically just doing their usual load of live appearances.

I am not in this case going all conspiracy-theory (been there, done that, had fun), but the inveterate gambler in me is starting to wonder if a significant announcement isn’t on the way.

You may have seen this fun video of Head from Korn going full Kami Band during one of the two bands’ dates not long ago:

This is a true story: Last night, I drove a long-ass way so as to finally see Rammstein play live. It wasn’t a bad decision at all! And the venue at Jones Beach and the atmosphere and the sheer monstrous volume and fire and fire and German of it all had me wondering a few times how cool it might be to have certain idols — for instance, Babymetal — perform there. And, hell, given that Babymetal’s latest thing is to do on-stage collaborations with the acts that host them on tour, what would it look like for them to do something with the loudest and metallest of them all?

I drove home last as hell (hence why the first post of the day is quite late!) and was settling in when my question was at least partly answered:

You just know that my love of portmanteau is screaming for the opportunity to call this ‘Kornymetal’ and open the floodgates of hell